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At the hair salon on her wedding day, a fellow bride turned to Tuqaa Afash and asked who her fiance was. "Abdulkareem Laila," Afash said, expecting that in the tight-knit village on the outskirts of Aleppo, the woman would recognize his name. "I don't know him," the woman said. Afash tried again. "Abu Firas," she said. "You're Abu Firas' fiancee?" the woman asked excitedly, as if referring to a celebrity. "Everyone was wondering who his fiancee would be. The girls were gossiping about it at school." Her fiance was no longer Abdulkareem, the quiet young man who couldn't find a job after graduating and spent months...

Related "Activism" Articles

At the hair salon on her wedding day, a fellow bride turned to Tuqaa Afash and asked who her fiance was.
"Abdulkareem Laila," Afash said, expecting that in the tight-knit village on the outskirts of Aleppo, the woman would recognize his...

The numbers have changed little over the decades: A majority of Americans support abortion.
But across the country, the antiabortion movement has recorded major success in the last four years, part of a well-funded national strategy to legislate abortion...

Screaming until they were red in the face, arguing until they burst into tears, supporters and opponents of Hong Kong's democracy protests faced off Friday afternoon in the dense commercial district of Mong Kok.
"Get out!" yelled dozens of men,...

Soon after the young woman was released by the Syrian government in a prisoner exchange, activists began noticing the signs.
The woman's husband immediately divorced her. She rarely ventured outside her parents' house. Not long after, she left for...

Using a metal barricade as a battering ram, masked men smashed through a window at Hong Kong’s Legislative Council headquarters early Wednesday, setting off clashes with police and raising fears that the government would step in with decisive action to...

Missouri officials have repeatedly warned that events after the grand jury decides whether to charge a white Ferguson police officer who fatally shot an unarmed black man will be a balancing act between the need for security and the desire to protect free...

Chinese courts on Friday took up two cases followed closely by international human rights watchdogs, with judges upholding a life sentence for an outspoken scholar convicted of separatism and a trial beginning for a veteran journalist charged with leaking...

Guarded by a phalanx of riot police, the knot of young Jewish men, long sidelocks blowing in the breeze, strode across the paved esplanade of Jerusalem's most sensitive religious site. A group of veiled and black-robed Muslim women leaped up to confront...

Isabel Allende will receive the Presidential Medal of Freedom, President Obama announced Tuesday. Allende, whose best-known book is "The House of the Spirits," is the only novelist among the 19 recipients of the nation's highest civilian honor....

A key media mogul who has strongly backed Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests urged demonstrators Thursday to leave the streets, saying a temporary retreat would be a strategic move in wake of recent clashes with police that have further divided public...

Opponents of Hong Kong's pro-democracy movement violently confronted its supporters Friday in the dense commercial district of Mong Kok, ripping down canopies, dragging away metal barricades and throwing punches as the street protests took a chaotic and...

In a significant turn that could fracture Hong Kong’s pro-democracy movement, the territory’s chief executive said late Thursday that members of his administration would hold talks with a student group. But he refused to bow to activists’ demands that...

Protesters showing up for Hong Kong's "umbrella revolution" without the eponymous accessory to shield themselves from rain, sun and tear gas need not fear — they can grab one of the hundreds of brand-new models in every hue hanging from...

Student leaders of Hong Kong’s pro-democracy protests said Thursday that they see little point in engaging in further dialogue with the government if officials don’t offer more specific details on a political reform proposal.
Yvonne Leung, spokeswoman...

A key pro-establishment Hong Kong politician on Friday urged the territory’s chief executive to step down, saying people had lost their trust in the government and a failure to resign would only exacerbate societal divisions.
With democracy protests...

Navajo elder Jay Tsosie winces when he recalls those torturous classroom drills from his childhood.
Back when the 77-year-old was a skinny, rambunctious schoolboy, teachers from the federal Bureau of Indian Affairs tried to exorcise a part of Tsosie that...

Hong Kong democracy protest leaders were organizing for an electronic vote Sunday to gauge protesters’ opinions about the government’s recent olive branch. But some supporters of the sit-ins warned the poll could backfire.
After more than three weeks...

In the latest blow to freedom of expression and assembly in Egypt, a Cairo court on Sunday sentenced nearly two dozen secular activists to three-year prison terms for violating a law that essentially bans street protests.
The 23 who were sentenced in the...

Amgen Inc., the Southern California biotech giant that has struggled to match the torrid growth of its pharmaceutical peers, finds itself in the crosshairs of a New York hedge fund manager, one of the new breed of activist investors, who is loudly calling...

Occidental College, under federal investigation for its handling of sexual assault complaints, has taken "sincere and significant" steps to improve its practices but is riven by bitter campus divisions that jeopardize future progress,...